Project Updates

Policy Integrity recently submitted comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on its five-year offshore leasing program from 2017-2022. BOEM is charged with stewarding vital and valuable resources for the benefit of the American people. On the one hand, the agency must direct the orderly development of offshore oil and gas deposits; at the same time, the agency must safeguard the ecosystems, cultural assets, and human lives affected by resource extraction decisions, and must preserve competing uses of offshore areas. BOEM thus has a responsibility to ensure the reasonable development of offshore resources so that costs to society are appropriately balanced against the benefits generated. Moreover, BOEM must collect a fair return on any of the American people’s oil and gas reserves that are leased for private development. Finally, the agency must attend to the different effects of offshore development on different regions, ecosystems, and communities.

Policy Integrity, on behalf of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Sustainable Economy, filed the opening brief in a lawsuit to halt illegal practices at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The brief argues that incomplete and flawed economic analysis leads BOEM to sell new offshore leases too quickly and too cheaply, potentially costing the American public hundreds of billions of dollars.

Policy Integrity, along with environmental attorney Steven Sugarman, are counsel to the Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) in their lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to halt the agency’s first five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing program approved since the Gulf oil disaster.

Policy Integrity submitted a letter to the EPA on its upcoming rulemaking regarding water quality permitting. The letter makes recommendations on improving the efficiency of EPA’s implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

Currently, the federal government treats lease sales as a now-or-never decision. That’s an approach that leads to too many leases sold too quickly, at too low a price. Instead, BOEM should be waiting to sell these leases until the time is right—when they can get the highest possible price.

Policy Integrity recently launched a wiki aimed at providing a better understanding of how energy sectors are subsidized by the tax code. The wiki will gather the expertise of lawyers, economists, tax professionals, and concerned citizens to catalog tax breaks received by the fossil and renewable energy industries.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) recently responded to our petition to reconsider its leasing policies. They commit to further review of our recommendations and mention the possibility of incorporating our findings in the next 5-year leasing program.

Policy Integrity submitted comments to the EPA on its proposed rules for cooling water intake structures, required under the Clean Water Act. These rules would affect practices at power plants that mean death for thousands of fish boiled or pinned by screens and intake pipes.

This morning, Policy Integrity petitioned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to reconsider its leasing policies, which may encourage over-drilling. The topic is the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act’s (OCSLA) requirement of the Secretary of the Interior to develop five-year schedules that specify the timing for offshore leasing activity.

In addition to submissions to the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, Policy Integrity also sent our recommendations on developing policies for conducting retrospective reviews to fourteen additional agencies this week, including the Department of the Interior (DOI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the State Department.